| Ten years ago, fashion writer Derek Guy interviewed a young Parisian student about his wardrobe. Brian's clothes, spare but sophisticated, fit into the tiny closet common in pre-20th-century housing. Every item mixed and matched elegantly, from the camel-toned overcoat to black jeans. When Guy interviewed Brian a decade later, many of the same jeans, pants and jackets were still in his closet, he told Guy. Everything remained not only wearable, but fashionable long after most people would have tossed the garments or shoved them to the back of the rack. "He formed a functional, stylish wardrobe using just a few pieces," says Guy. With fast fashion moving from design to retail rack in less than 15 days — and often lasting no more than 10 wearings — the idea of using clothes beyond a single season, let alone for a decade, can seem archaic. But fast fashion's sartorial sugar rush fades fast: 11.3 million tons of textiles ended up in landfills in 2018, the last year the Environmental Protection Agency published data. That's about 76 pounds per person in the United States, adding to the fashion industry's trail of environmental degradation and labor violations. As you look to upgrade your attire for winter, it might be tempting to replace the sweater you bought a few years ago with a new one. Hold off. After the novelty of the purchase is gone, will you be left with just a pile of threads or something that matters, if not forever, at least for a season of your life? Why do we throw away so many clothes? Today, the idea of planned obsolescence, degrading the physical durability of many products, is alive and well, but it has been eclipsed by something far more pervasive: "psychological obsolescence." Persuading consumers to ditch perfectly usable products for more fashionable versions with little more than cosmetic changes has transformed consumer capitalism. Clothes often become obsolete in the mind of the buyer long before any materials wear out, sometimes as soon as they're taken home. The desirability of most fashion is dictated by designers, retailers or our peers — hardly ever ourselves. This powers psychological obsolescence: When trends change, so does our satisfaction. How can we change that? The antidote, argues Jonathan Chapman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Design, is "emotional durability," a term he coined. Our possessions, particularly clothes, serve as extensions of our identities, even our values. By recognizing what makes an item valuable, rather than merely desired, fashion can become timeless. "We are consumers of meaning not matter," writes Chapman in his 2005 book "Emotionally Durable Design." "Waste then is a symptom of expired empathy, a kind of failed relationship that leads to the dumping of one by the other." What does that look like? On the Contentedness Thread, fashionistas gush over ordinary clothes, often ratty jeans or scuffed shoes, that have only not only improved over time but have become "an extension of myself," as one person rhapsodized about a leather jacket and jeans. "If either of these were ruined," the person wrote, "I would have to give them a Viking burial and salute them as they burn in the ocean." I'm not planning any funerary rights for my clothes, but I have a pair of black boots on their third resoling that I enjoy taking care of, and I plan to wear them as long as possible. What can you do? Here are the tips I dive into in the column: - Learn to recognize quality and value: The bromide of "buy the best you can afford" isn't always helpful.
- Find your personal style: Going "out of style" might be a thing of the past.
- Avoid the temptation of "sales": Buying something because it's cheap can be expensive
- Set a price: Come up with an amount that's high enough to make you think twice, but low enough to allow you to buy something that will last.
Read the full column below to learn more. | 
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